


you and the moon and neptune

by scheherazade



Series: next year, for christmas [3]
Category: Tenimyu RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-26
Packaged: 2018-07-27 00:53:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7596997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scheherazade/pseuds/scheherazade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The air smells different when he steps off the train.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you and the moon and neptune

**Author's Note:**

  * For [acchikocchi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/acchikocchi/gifts).



> happy birthday, mer!!! i couldn't finish futurefic in time for today, but just managed to get this done. you're the worst/best enabler and the best/best friend a girl could ask for. a hundred thousand good wishes for this year and every year. ilu. <3
> 
> a yuuuuuuge thanks to dee for the speediest beta ever!
> 
> title from ["bright" by echosmith](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IQpTeJfMj4).

The air smells different when he steps off the train. He stops on the empty platform, backpack on one shoulder, and closes his eyes for a moment. 

Behind him, the train doors shut with a sigh. The platform beneath his feet rumbles, then falls silent again. 

He breathes in, smells sunbaked concrete and the dusty scent of wildflowers in late summer. There's probably more dirt than flowers, or weeds, but still.

"Daisuke."

His breath hitches — he could blame it on the dust, but when he opens his eyes, Sho is walking toward him.

"Hey," says Sho, and, "Sorry. Were you waiting long?"

Daisuke hadn't closed his eyes for that long; if Sho's here now, he was close enough to hear the train pull away. But it's just like Sho, he thinks, to ask something like that anyway if only so Daisuke can smile and shake his head.

"Thanks for meeting me here." He looks past the platform, a single dirt road and what looks like endless fields beyond, though logically he knows they must end somewhere — giving way to mountains or sea or cities of light and concrete. "I probably _would_ have gotten lost trying to catch a bus out here."

If Sho notices the inflection, he doesn't show any remorse for the way he'd basically dismissed Daisuke's sense of direction as hopeless. "Bus service was cancelled today anyway. Wasn't gonna make you walk."

"I'm in great shape, I'll have you know." Daisuke hefts the backpack on his shoulder. "Carry my own bags and everything."

"As independent young ladies should."

Daisuke mock punches his shoulder. Sho doesn't even bother to dodge, which would be offensive if he weren't smiling the way he is, soft as sunlight and weeds. 

"C'mon then," Sho says. "The car's around back."

 

* * *

 

Inaba in late summer is like something out of a fairytale, a place for happy endings and childhood stories that contain no greater drama than an annual fishing competition, down at the Samegawa where it flows broad and calm.

Sho tells Daisuke about the time the neighborhood cat got to the winning fish before the photographer did. In the end, that year's photograph had to be restaged with a trout furtively purchased from the general store. _Inaba's darkest secret_ , Sho says solemnly. _The great cover-up of '98_. 

Daisuke laughs until he's nearly doubled over in the passenger seat.

He looks good — more than good, really: he looks happy, right here, right now, the window down and his hair rumpled by the breeze, green countryside rolling by, the river a distant glimmering thread.

Sho loses the thread of his own story for a moment.

Daisuke takes long enough to recover from his gigglefit that he doesn't notice. He draws a deep breath, still smiling when he settles back in his seat. Sho keeps both eyes on the road, keeps Daisuke in the corner of his vision.

"It must've been nice to grow up here." Daisuke leans his elbow on the window, chin in his hand. "It's beautiful."

"You would've hated it."

"Would not."

"The nearest department store is like, two hours away."

"I do have other hobbies, you know." 

Sho lifts one eyebrow. 

Daisuke scrunches his nose. "Okay, well — I could have picked up other hobbies. Like camping. Or fishing."

"You're scared of fish," Sho reminds him. "Anyway, I only came here like a handful of times when I was a kid. No point visiting once my cousins left for college."

"You're here now."

 _So are you._ They're not ready to talk about that yet. "Yeah, well," he says instead. "Nao-neesan came back after getting her business degree. And she can be — persuasive."

Understatement, but Daisuke doesn't know that, and Sho's not about to badmouth his own relatives — even if he does have an overabundance of intimidating female ones.

He still hasn't quite forgiven his mother for volunteering him in the first place. ("Oh, you have that weekend off, don't you? Nao's been asking for us — the inn's doing good business, which is great, but things are so busy it's all hands on deck if you can spare them. I'd go myself but you know how my back's been acting up, and your sister's got Shion to look after. Anyway, Nao put aside a room for you as a thank you! Special family discount.") He almost said no, contrary to everything he'd been raised to believe and obey. 

Maybe he should have. Maybe then he wouldn't have let it slip, when Daisuke mentioned — over a hasty cup of coffee, rush hour downtown — that he'd love to get away from the city for a day or two.

He hadn't really expected Daisuke to say yes.

But here they are, Inaba in late summer, Daisuke in the car beside him and a weekend to be spent. Three days. No point overthinking it now, he tells himself, and drives on.

 

* * *

 

The woman who greets them at the inn introduces herself as Amagi Nao. She has a brisk, businesslike air and is a full two hands shorter than Sho. Daisuke is just starting to think there's not much family resemblance when Sho says, 

"Anyway, here we are — ready to do your bidding, whatever you should need. Just don't ask Daisuke to do actual housework. He might collapse."

Before Daisuke can splutter a protest, Nao replies, "Your friend doesn't look that fragile to me." She gives Daisuke a quick once over. "Anyway, he's pretty enough to get away with not working. You, on the other hand."

"Oy!"

"Learn a real trade, Sho-chan." Nao pats his cheek, then gestures for them to follow her into the inn. "That smirky face won't last you forever."

Daisuke coughs to disguise a laugh. Sho just rolls his eyes.

He's smiling, though — not smirking — as they follow Nao upstairs.

 

* * *

 

"Oh, wow," Daisuke says. 

Sho looks at Nao. "You're giving us this room?"

"You're helping out, aren't you?" Nao shoos Daisuke inside, and Sho follows with their bags. "You'll keep it tidy and clean up after yourself. I'm short-staffed enough as is without needing to worry about the honeymoon suite. Anyway, it's the only room left unless you want to sleep in the shed. I might be a businesswoman, but I'm not heartless."

Daisuke is examining the sliding doors. A panel rolls aside, and he lets out another soft _oh_. 

The room faces east, overlooking the garden with its fruit-bearing trees. Beyond, the foothills crowd close to the walls of the inn. The maples will be scarlet come fall. For now, it's a vision of green broken only by a glimpse of the Samegawa between two leafy slopes. 

Sho watches him take a hesitant step onto the wooden porch, then another. Puts his hands down on the railing. A stiff breeze sends a thousand branches rustling, like a roar, like a wave. Daisuke smiles.

Nao says, "Nice view, isn't it?"

Sho tears his eyes away.

Nao pats his arm absently, or possibly swats at a flying insect that's landed on him. 

"Come down for dinner whenever you're ready," she says, already halfway out the door. "I'll be in the kitchen. And bring the car keys — I need you to run some errands."

 

* * *

 

The shopping district hums with quiet as one by one the stores close for the night. They pass Daidara's, the tofu shop, a boarded up storefront where the game shop used to be — years and years ago, when Sho wasn't even tall enough to see over the counter. 

Daisuke walks beside him, looking around at this and that. Not curious so much as content. 

"Small town syndrome," Sho tells him.

"What?"

"The town drags you down to its own pace. After a while, you start believing a new flavor of soda in the vending machine is exciting. And a fox appearing at the abandoned shrine is local legend for an entire generation."

"A fox guarding a shrine is pretty awesome. Like a fairytale."

"Or ghost story." Sho points up ahead. "Don't look now, but think he heard you."

Daisuke looks startled for a second — "Who?" — and then he sees the small shape sitting on the steps of the derelict shrine. The fox lifts its head with regal bearing.

Daisuke covers his mouth with both hands. The fox cocks its head, regarding them.

"Think he likes you," Sho suggests.

"Is it _actually_ a spirit?"

Sho snorts — but Daisuke sounds halfway serious. He looks at the fox again. The fox looks back at him. 

"It's probably just been around humans a long time."

"He's staring at me," Daisuke says. "What should I do?"

"I'm not really in tune with the spirit world."

"Do foxes grant wishes?"

"I wouldn't read too much into it. He probably stares at all the pretty girls."

Daisuke smacks his arm for that. "Seriously."

"I am serious."

It comes out more like a joke, but Daisuke pauses all the same. Sho sticks his hands in his pockets; there's no point reading into it.

Daisuke seems to make up his mind. He bows to the fox.

And the fox — inclines its head as well. Probably just sniffing at something on the ground. It's getting dark enough that he can't quite tell. The fox looks back at them one more time, then bounds up the steps and disappears into the shrine.

Daisuke has a thoughtful look on his face.

"Told you he's not that into you," says Sho.

Daisuke tries to hit him again, and this time Sho dodges. "You're the worst," Daisuke informs him.

He finds himself smiling all the same. "Yeah. Probably."

 

* * *

 

It's fully dark by the time they return, Sho carrying the order of textiles that was their actual errand, and Daisuke carrying the box of peaches that Tatsumi-san had insisted on giving them along with the cloth. 

The inn is yellow with lamplight, a bright glow against the summer evening. Daisuke hugs the box a little closer in his arms. 

Small town syndrome or not, he thinks, this is wonderful.

Even Sho looks more at ease, here. Running errands. Coming home. 

They find Nao in her office, drop off the things she'd asked for. The cook comes by and Daisuke gives her the box of peaches from Tatsumi-san. 

The house cat gets underfoot, nosing at Sho's ankles and receiving an absent-minded pat for her trouble. Eventually she abandons him in favor of Daisuke's undivided attention, covering him in cat hair and smug purring.

"She likes you," says the cook, Kujikawa-san. "Careful now, or she'll probably try to follow you back to Tokyo."

"He can have her," Nao snorts, and Sho laughs.

Daisuke thinks he wouldn't mind. But he doubts it. A home is a home.

Later, though — alone upstairs, setting out the futons, the porch doors open and incense burning to keep the mosquitos away — a swaying branch resolves into a light sound of paws.

He turns his head to the cat padding across the porch. 

"Hello again."

The cat butts her head against his hand when he offers it. She seems more interested in pouncing on one of the futons and kneading it into lumps. Daisuke leaves her to it. He finishes making the other futon and gets under the covers, turns his head to check on the cat.

It's gone.

There's barely a moment for disappointment as he feels paws climbing over his legs, his stomach. He lifts his head. The cat peers at him. Turns in a slow circle, then puts her head down on her paws. Tail curled around her body. 

He can feel her rumbling little breaths against his chest.

 

* * *

 

When he returns from the baths, there's a cat sleeping on top of Daisuke. For a second, Sho just stands in the doorway.

The cat opens one eye to peer at him. Daisuke doesn't wake.

Sho closes the door. 

He tries not to make any noise, but Daisuke stirs when he walks past. The cat shifts, disgruntled, curls into an even tighter ball. Daisuke absently pets its ears.

"Hey," says Daisuke.

"Hey." Sho contemplates the futon. Decides it's too hot, and pulls the covers aside. "Didn't mean to wake you."

"S'okay. Think we're rooming with the cat. Hope you don't mind."

He turns over on his side to look across at the cat. It pays him no mind. Daisuke is looking at him, though. There's enough moon to make out the soft sleepiness on his face.

"I like cats," Sho says.

Daisuke smiles back. "Good."

 

* * *

 

He wakes up to a soft trill of birdsong. The sky outside is still blue-grey, muddled between night and dawn. Daisuke sits up slowly. The cat is nowhere in sight. Sho is still asleep. 

Quietly, he gets up. 

The wooden porch is cool beneath his bare feet, but not unpleasant. He can see a hint of color edging the eastward hills. A sweet scent of flowers rises from the garden still shadowed below. 

He sits by the railing and watches the sun rise. 

It seems strange to think, this time last year, he'd almost gotten used to the idea that best friends were for other people, and mistakes were forever, because there are some things you just can't take back or fix, even if you didn't mean it, even if you apologized. 

Maybe that's still true, career-wise. But acting is easy, always has been; there's always another audition, another chance. And that's never been a matter of what he deserves. Daisuke knows he's very good at what he does.

What he's not so good at — is this.

Because there's no reason for Sho to give him a second chance. If that's what this is. Daisuke still isn't sure. But they've been doing okay, this year — lunch now and then, coffee to go — and he could live with that, Daisuke thinks, if that's all he's allowed.

Except.

Today, Daisuke is sitting on a porch watching the sun come up.

Yesterday, Nao referred to him as Sho's friend.

And he is. He wants to be. He wants this as much as he's ever wanted anything.

Except. Lately. Every now and then.

Daisuke finds himself wondering, in moments like this, if Sho still believes like he once did that they were always meant to be something more.

 

* * *

 

He wakes up with the sun in his eyes, and finds Daisuke sitting out on the porch in the slanting, morning light. Like he'd been there for hours. Which, knowing him, he might have been. 

Sho says, "Hey." His voice is scratchy with sleep, but when Daisuke looks up he's smiling. "You'll get sunburned like that, you know."

"Will not." Daisuke glances at his own arms anyway. Presses a hand to his own cheek. "I'm not, am I?"

"I'll get you a parasol next time."

"Shut up," says Daisuke. The fondness in his voice is almost too much, this early in the day.

He offers Daisuke a hand up. Daisuke takes it.

 

* * *

 

After breakfast, Nao assigns them to help with food prep.

"Peeling potatoes," Sho sighs, rolling up his sleeves. "So glad I came here for the real country experience, Nao. Really."

"You're here to do my bidding, remember?" Nao retorts, while Kujikawa-san laughs and helps Daisuke into an apron that's much too large for him. Nao points to a bag of onions. "Those also need to be chopped."

Kujikawa-san gives Daisuke a cutting board and knife. Daisuke doesn't seem to mind. Then again, Sho reminds himself, they did sign up for this.

He catches Daisuke's eye.

"Trade?"

"You want the onions?"

"No." Sho looks at the knife in his hand. "Just don't want you hurting yourself."

Daisuke sticks out his tongue at him. "Watch me."

Five minutes later, Kujikawa-san shoos the both of them out of the kitchen — "Oh, go on. Leave the onions and go dry your eyes. Watching you cry is just about breaking my heart."

Daisuke might've protested, Sho thinks, if he weren't sniffling too hard to form sentences. Sho pulls him away from the cutting board.

They sit on the stoop out back, in the shade. Sho with his potatoes, Daisuke sorting through a basket of bean sprouts.

The cat prowls up to them. Gives Sho a disdainful look. Bumps its head against Daisuke's elbow. Daisuke smiles. "I'd pet you, but then I'd have to go wash my hands again."

"Don't think cats understand logic," Sho says. 

"They're smarter than you think."

"That's a low bar to clear."

The cat growls at him. Daisuke laughs.

Eventually the cat loses interest and wanders off. Their patch of shade slowly disappears as morning gives way to noon. Daisuke moves with the shade, creeping closer to stay out of the sun.

Sho stays where he is, and they end up thus: Daisuke's shoulder against his arm, a swatch of sunlight across their knees.

 

* * *

 

"You're dismissed," Nao says around three. "Thanks for the hard work. Come back for dinner."

"No more potatoes," says Sho. "I beg of you."

Nao doesn't even look up from her ledger. "I'll find you some different root vegetables. Enjoy your afternoon."

Daisuke washes his face, puts on the straw hat that Kujikawa-san had rummaged up for him. Sho takes the car keys, and they drive down the river road. 

Past flowering fields and pebble-dry banks, past ambling pedestrians and the occasional family walking a dog, past the high school that Sho once visited when Nao had just graduated junior high. Down at the pier where old men fish in cooler weather, a troupe of children are splashing about in the shallows, their laughter carrying high and clear across the water.

They leave the car by the riverbank. 

Up on the hill overlooking the flood plain is an old gazebo. The path is overgrown and steeper than Sho remembers. But Daisuke follows him, step by careful step.

It's quieter, up here. From the north side of the gazebo, he can see the rise of roofs marking the shopping district. The shrine is a speck of green amidst cobblestone and brick. 

Daisuke fans himself with his hat. 

Sho sits down beside him. Finds the water bottle Nao had slipped into his bag, uncaps it. Hands it to Daisuke, who smiles before taking a sip. 

"Thanks."

"You feeling all right?"

"It's a lot hotter than it was this morning."

"We could go somewhere air conditioned, if you want."

"Mm. Maybe. I don't really want to move, though."

"Yeah. I mean, you could definitely camp out here for a few days. But eventually somebody's gonna call the police because there's some sketchy looking guy hiding out in the woods above the pier."

"Sure," Daisuke agrees amiably, "but then you'd have to tell the police why you didn't call earlier."

"I'd never turn you in."

"Because you'd be in jail with me?"

Daisuke is smiling at nothing in particular. Hat dangling from his fingertips, at ease with the world — with him — here in a town where nothing like this was ever supposed to happen. Sho looks away. 

"What are friends for, right?"

If Daisuke objects to the characterization, he says nothing of it. And if Sho wants him to object, well. That's his own problem.

"I almost don't want to go back," says Daisuke.

"Back where?"

"Tokyo."

"You'd really want to live in a place like this?"

"Wouldn't you?"

 _That's not fair,_ Sho nearly says. He shrugs instead. "You'd get sick of it pretty quick. Nothing ever happens. Nothing to write home about."

"I don't know. The fishing competition sounds pretty exciting."

"Fishing is literally the worst spectator sport ever invented."

"You watch a lot of fishing, do you?"

"I don't have a lot going on in Tokyo."

That makes Daisuke laugh. Sho smiles to himself. It's nice to know he can still do that.

"It's nice here," Daisuke continues, after a bit. "Not what I expected. But it's nice."

"What did you expect?"

A pause. "Nothing to write home about."

Sho snorts. 

"That was before I met the fox," Daisuke adds, defensive.

"You've gone native."

"You're just jealous."

"Of a fox?"

"A wish-granting fox."

"Sure, and I've got some snake oil to sell you at a discount price."

"Shut up."

"I also got a crystal ball in my white van, if you'll just step inside—"

"You're actually the worst person I know."

"I'm flattered." Sho leans back, closes his eyes a moment. "What'd you wish for?"

"What?"

"With the fox."

There's a long pause, long enough for Sho to wonder if he said something wrong. It seemed a harmless enough question.

 _You don't have to tell me,_ he starts to say, when Daisuke answers, 

"For things to be okay. With us."

And that's not fair, either. But he doesn't know how to shrug this one off. He opens his eyes and finds he also doesn't know how to meet Daisuke's gaze.

He says instead, "Why'd you come here this weekend?"

Daisuke is quiet for a second. "You asked me to."

"I didn't ask. I just mentioned, since you said you wanted to go somewhere for a while—"

"I meant like, abroad. Thailand or something."

"What's in Thailand?"

"Beaches? I don't know. Some friends were there recently, and — I don't know."

It takes him a moment to pull together the relevant details. Sho blinks. "You mean Akazawa?"

"Yeah. And Tsune-kun."

"Weren't they there for filming?"

Daisuke shrugs. "Tomoru said it was fun. Even if it was work." A pause. "I mean, we're not really on vacation either. But still."

He doesn't sound unhappy. When Sho sneaks a glance, Daisuke is smiling at the hat in his hands. It seems strange, that he could be happy about something — someplace — someone — like this.

"Inaba's not really Bangkok."

"I'm also not Tomoru." Daisuke glances at him. "And you're not Tsune-kun."

"Yeah, well." He feels weirdly calm, like the moment before a cue, ready with a line that feels as rehearsed as it is true. "I think I'm a much better catch than Aoki Tsunenori."

Daisuke doesn't look away. "Yeah," he says. Still smiling. "I think so, too."

 

* * *

 

They go down to the Samegawa as the sun swings low. The kids from earlier have all gone home, evening quiet interrupted only by the lapping waves and their footsteps crunching over the pebbled path. 

Sho kicks off his shoes. Daisuke follows suit.

Everything's washed in river green and gold, like pictures from a story book:

Daisuke, barefoot on the riverbank. 

Daisuke, yelping at how cold the water is but following him anyway when Sho wades ahead.

Daisuke, losing his footing and instinctively reaching for him — not that he needed to, because Sho had already caught his arm.

Daisuke looks up at him. His hands are warm, strangely enough. Palm to palm. A flutter of heartbeat in his throat. A steady weight leaning into him. Too close.

He doesn't move away when Daisuke kisses him, out here in a town that no one knows, early evening, late summer, the river around their ankles clean and cold.

 

* * *

 

He keeps his eyes closed, for just a second longer. Maybe he shouldn't have done that. But Sho hasn't said anything yet. Daisuke takes a breath.

"Was that—" he begins, then begins again, "Are we — is that okay?"

He counts his own heartbeats, loud in his ears. On three, he'll look up. On three, if Sho hasn't said anything by then.

He only gets to two before Sho kisses him again.

 

* * *

 

The cat doesn't come sleep with Daisuke that night. Only moonlight slips through the open porch door, stealthier than anything on four paws.

"She really doesn't like you," Daisuke notes, curled up beside him, one hand tucked beneath his chin; the other one is caught in his own.

He laces their fingers together. "No room for her anyway."

"I thought you liked cats."

"Sure," says Sho. "I like _you_."

Daisuke kicks him under the covers, but he's laughing. Sho can feel it — in the huff of breath against his cheek — the faint tremor of his shoulders, his chest — and the curve of Daisuke's smiling mouth.

"You're lucky I like you, too," Daisuke murmurs later, sleepy and warm.

Sho presses a kiss to his forehead. "Yeah," he says. "I know."


End file.
